—Before we go I’d like a moment to check the church.
Nikolai accepted the proposal at face value.
—A perfectionist, that’s good. But hurry up. Tonight we get drunk. You haven’t had a drink in two months! You’ve been living like a monk!
Nikolai laughed at his own joke, patting Leo on the back before heading out. Alone, Leo walked to the displaced stone altar, staring into the hole. Caught between the side of the trunk and the earth wall there was a single sheet of paper. He reached down, picking it up. It was a page of music. His eyes ran across the notes. Deciding that it would be better not to know what had been lost, he raised the sheet above the flame of a nearby candle, watching the paper turn black.
SEVEN YEARS LATER
MOSCOW
12 MARCH 1956
MANAGER OF A SMALL ACADEMIC PRINTING PRESS, Suren Moskvin had become renowned for producing textbooks of the poorest quality, using ink that smeared and the thinnest paper, all held together with a glue spine that began to shed pages within hours of opening. It wasn’t that he was lazy or incompetent. Far from it, he’d start work early in the morning and finish late at night. The reason the books were so shabby was due to the raw materials allotted by the State. While the content of academic publications was carefully monitored, they were not a resource priority. Locked into a quota system, Suren was forced to produce a large number of books from the lowest grade of paper in the shortest period of time. The equation never changed and he was at its mercy, acutely embarrassed that his reputation had sunk so low. There were jokes—with ink-stained fingers, students and teachers quipped that Moskvin’s books always stayed with you. Ridiculed, he’d been finding it difficult getting out of bed. He wasn’t eating properly. He was drinking throughout the day, bottles stashed in drawers, behind bookshelves. Aged fifty-five, he’d discovered something new about himself: he didn’t have the stomach for public humiliation.
Inspecting the Linotype printing machines, brooding over his failures, he noticed a young man standing at the door. Suren addressed him defensively:
—Yes? What is it? It’s not normal to stand there unannounced.
The man stepped forward, in typical student attire, a long coat and a cheap black scarf. He was holding a book, outstretched. Suren snatched it from his hands, bracing himself for more complaints. He glanced at the cover: Lenin’s The State and Revolution. They’d printed a new volume only last week, distributed a day or so ago, and this man, it would seem, was the first to spot something amiss. A mistake in a seminal work was a grave matter: during Stalin’s rule it would be enough to warrant arrest. The student leaned forward and opened the book, flicking to the front. Printed on the title page was a black-and-white photo. The student commented:
—The text at the bottom says it’s a photo of Lenin but… as you can see…
The photo was of a man who looked nothing like Lenin, a man standing against a wall, a stark white wall. His hair was wild. His eyes were wild.
Suren slammed the book shut and turned to the student:
—You think I could have printed one thousand copies of this book with the wrong photo! Who are you! What is your name! Why are you doing this? My problems are due to the limits of my materials, not carelessness!
Pushed back, the book jabbed at his chest, the scarf around the student’s neck came loose, revealing the edge of a tattoo. The sight made Suren pause. A tattoo was incongruous with the otherwise typical appearance of a student. No one, except the vory, the professional criminals, would mark their skin in such a way.
With the impetus taken out of Suren’s indignation, the man exploited his hesitation and hurried out. Halfheartedly, Suren followed, still holding the book, watching the mysterious figure disappear into the night. Uneasy, he shut the door, locking it. Something bothered him: that photograph. He took out his spectacles, opened the book, and scrutinized the face a little more closely: those terrified eyes. Like a ghost ship slowly emerging from dense sea fog, the identity of the man appeared to him. His face was familiar. His hair and eyes were wild because he’d been arrested and dragged from his bed. Suren recognized the photograph because he had taken it.
Suren hadn’t always run a printing press. Previously, he’d been employed by the MGB. Twenty years of loyal service, his career with the secret police had spanned longer than many of his superiors. Fulfilling a variety of banal tasks—cleaning cells, photographing prisoners—his low rank had been an asset and he’d been savvy enough not to push for more responsibility, never getting noticed, evading the cyclical purges of the upper echelons. Difficult things had been demanded of him. He’d done his duty unswervingly. Back then he’d been a man to be feared. No one made jokes about him. They wouldn’t have dared. Ill health had forced him to retire. Though well remunerated and comfortable, he’d found idleness impossible. Lying in bed with no purpose to his day, his mind had wandered, drifting over the past, remembering faces like the one now stuck into this book. The solution was to remain busy, appointments and meetings. He needed an occupation. He didn’t want to reminisce.
Closing the book, he slipped the volume into his pocket. Why was this happening today? It couldn’t be mere coincidence. Despite his failure to produce a book or journal of any quality, he’d unexpectedly been asked to publish an important State document. He hadn’t been told the nature of the document. However, the prestige of the assignment meant high-quality resources—good paper and ink. Finally he’d been given the opportunity to produce something he could be proud of. They were to deliver the document this evening. And someone with a grudge was trying to undermine him just as his fortunes were about to change.
He left the factory floor, hurrying to his office, carefully smoothing his wispy gray hair to the side. He was wearing his best suit—he only had two, one for everyday use and one for special occasions. This was a special occasion. He hadn’t needed help getting out of bed today. He’d been awake before his wife. He’d shaved, humming. He’d eaten a full breakfast, his first for weeks. Arriving at the factory early, he’d taken the bottle of vodka from his drawer and poured it down the sink before spending the day cleaning, mopping, dusting—wiping away the flecks of grease from the Linotype machines. His sons, both university students, had paid him a visit, impressed by the transformation. Suren reminded them that it was a matter of principle to keep the workplace spotless. The workplace was where a person took their identity and sense of self. They’d kissed him good-bye, wishing him luck with the enigmatic new commission. At last, after the many years of secrecy and the recent years of failure, they had reason to be proud of him.
He checked his watch. It was seven in the evening. They’d be here any minute. He should forget about the stranger and photograph, it wasn’t important. He couldn’t let him distract him. Suddenly he wished he hadn’t poured the vodka away. A drink would’ve calmed him. Then again, they might have smelled it on his breath. Better not to have any, better to be nervous—it showed he took the job seriously. Suren reached for the bottle of kvass. A nonalcoholic rye bread brew: it would have to do.
In his haste, his coordination shaky from alcohol withdrawal, he upended a tray of steel letter molds. The tray fell from the desk, emptying its contents, the individual letters scattering across the stone floor.
Clink Clink
His body went rigid. No longer in his office, Suren was standing in a narrow brick corridor, a row of steel doors on one side. He remembered this place: Oriol Prison, where he’d been a guard at the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War. Forced to retreat from the rapidly approaching German army, he and his fellow guards had been ordered to liquidate the inmate population, leaving behind no sympathetic recruits for the Nazi invaders. With the buildings being strafed by Stukas and panzers within shelling distance, they’d faced the logistical conundrum of eliminating twenty cells crowded with hundreds of political criminals in a matter of minutes. They didn’t have time for bullets or nooses. It had been his idea to use grenades, two dropped into each cel
l. He’d walked to the end of the corridor, pulled back the small steel grate, and tossed them in—clink, clink—the sound of the grenade casing on a concrete floor. He’d slammed the grate shut so that they couldn’t be tossed out, running back down the corridor to get away from the blast, imagining the men fumbling for the grenades, their filthy fingers slipping, trying to throw them out of the small barred window.
Suren placed his hands tight over his ears as if this could stop the memory. But the noise continued, louder and louder, grenades on the concrete floor, cell after cell.
Clink Clink Clink Clink
He cried out:
—Stop!
Removing his hands from his ears, he realized someone was knocking on the door.
13 MARCH
THE VICTIM’S THROAT HAD BEEN SAVAGED by a series of deep, ragged cuts. There were no injuries above or below what remained of the man’s neck, giving the contradictory impression of frenzy and control. Considering the ferocity of the attack, only a small amount of blood had spread right and left from the incisions, pooling into the shape of fledgling angel wings. The killer appeared to have knocked the victim to the floor, pinned him down, continuing to slash, long after Suren Moskvin—aged fifty-five and the manager of a small academic printing press—had died.
His body had been found early this morning when his sons, Vsevolod and Akvsenti, had entered the premises, concerned that their father hadn’t come home. Distraught, they’d contacted the militia, who’d found a ransacked office: drawers pulled out of the desk, papers on the floor, filing cabinets forced open. They’d concluded that it was a bungled robbery. Not until late in the afternoon, some seven hours after the initial discovery, had the militia finally contacted the homicide department headed by former MGB agent Leo Stepanovich Demidov.
Leo was accustomed to such delays. He’d created the homicide department three years ago using the leverage he’d gained from solving the murders of over forty-four children. Since its conception the department’s relationship with the regular militia was fraught. Cooperation was erratic. The very existence of his department was considered by many militia and KGB officers to imply an unacceptable degree of criticism of both their work and the State. In truth, they were correct. Leo’s motive in forming the department was a reaction against his work as an agent. He’d arrested many civilians during his previous career, arrests he’d made based upon nothing more than typed lists of names passed down from his superiors. In contrast, the homicide department pursued an evidential truth, not a politicized one. Leo’s duty was to present the facts of each case to his superiors. What they did with that truth was up to them. Leo’s private hope was that one day he’d balance his arrest ledger, the guilty outweighing the innocent. Even at a conservative estimate, he had a long way to go.
The freedoms granted to the homicide department resulted in their work being subject to the highest level of secrecy. They reported directly to senior figures in the Ministry of Interior, operating as a covert subsection of the Main Office for Criminal Investigations. The population at large still needed to believe in the evolution of society. Falling crime rates were a tenet of that belief. Contradictory facts were filtered from the national consciousness. No citizen could contact the homicide department because no citizen knew it existed. For this reason Leo couldn’t broadcast requests for information or ask witnesses to come forward since such actions would be tantamount to propagandizing the existence of crime. The freedom that he’d been granted was of a very particular kind, and Leo, who’d done everything in his power to put his former career in the secret police behind him, now found himself running a very different kind of secret police force.
Uneasy with the first-glance explanation behind Moskvin’s death, Leo studied the crime scene, his eyes fastening on the chair. Positioned, unremarkably, in front of the desk, the seat was at a slight angle. He walked up to it, crouching down, running his finger over a thin fracture line on one of the wooden legs. Tentatively testing his weight, pushing down on the back, the leg immediately gave way. The chair was broken. If anyone had sat on it, it would have collapsed. Yet it was positioned at the desk as though it were suitable for use.
Returning his attention to the body, he took hold of the victim’s hands. There were no cuts, no scratches—no sign that this man had defended himself. Kneeling, Leo moved close to the victim’s neck. There was hardly any skin left except on the back, the area touching the floor, protected from repeated slashes. Leo took out a knife, prising it under the victim’s neck and lifting the blade up, exposing a small stretch of skin that hadn’t been destroyed. It was bruised. Lowering the flap of skin, retracting the knife, he was about to stand up when he caught sight of a pocket on the dead man’s suit. He reached in, taking out a slim book—Lenin’s The State and Revolution. Even before opening the book, he could see that there was something unusual with the binding: a page had been glued in. Turning to the page in question, he saw a photo of a disheveled man. Though Leo had no idea who the man was, he recognized the type of photograph—the stark white background, the suspect’s disoriented expression. It was an arrest photo.
Puzzled by this elaborate anomaly, Leo stood up. Timur Nesterov entered the room, glancing at the book:
—Something important?
—I’m not sure.
Timur was Leo’s closest colleague and friend. The friendship they’d developed was of an understated kind. They didn’t drink together, banter, or talk very much except about work—a partnership typified by long silences. To cynics there was reason to suppose resentment in their relationship. Almost ten years younger, Leo was now Timur’s superior, despite the fact that he’d previously been his subordinate, always formally addressing him as General Nesterov. Objectively Leo had benefited more from their joint success. People had insinuated that he was a profiteer, individualistic and career-minded. But Timur showed no jealousy. The issue of rank was incidental. He was proud of his job. His family was provided for. In moving to Moscow he’d finally, after languishing on waiting lists, been appointed a modern apartment with running hot water and a twenty-four-hour electricity supply. No matter how their relationship might outwardly seem, they trusted each other with their lives.
Timur gestured toward the main factory floor where the towering Linotype machines stood, giant mechanical insects:
—The sons have arrived.
—Bring them in.
—With their father’s body in the room?
—Yes.
The sons had been allowed to leave, sent home by the militia before Leo could question them. He would apologize that they had to see their father’s body again but he had no intention of trusting secondhand information passed to him by the militia.
Summoned, Vsevolod and Akvsenti—both in their early twenties— appeared at the door, side by side. Leo introduced himself:
—I’m Officer Leo Demidov. I understand this must be difficult.
Neither of them looked at their father’s body, keeping their eyes on Leo. The older son, Vsevolod, spoke:
—We answered the militia’s questions.
—My questions won’t take long. Is this room as you found it this morning?
—Yes, it’s the same.
Vsevolod was doing all the talking. Akvsenti remained silent, his eyes occasionally flicking up. Leo continued:
—Was this chair at the table? It might have been knocked over, in the struggle perhaps?
—The struggle?
—Between your father and the killer?
There was silence. Leo continued:
—The chair’s broken. If you sat on it, it would collapse. It’s odd to have a broken chair in front of a desk. You can’t sit on it.
Both sons turned toward the chair. Vsevolod replied:
—You’ve brought us back to talk about a chair?
—The chair is important. I believe your father used it to hang himself.
The suggestion should have been ludicrous. They should have been outraged. Yet they
remained silent. Sensing his speculation was on target, Leo pressed his theory:
—I believe your father hanged himself, maybe from one of the overhead beams in the factory. He stood on the chair and then kicked it from under his feet. You found his body this morning. You dragged him here, replaced the chair, not noticing that it had been damaged. One of you, or both of you, cut his throat in an attempt to conceal the scarring from the rope burns. The office was staged as if there was a break-in.
They were promising students. The suicide of their father might end their careers and destroy their prospects. Suicide, attempted suicide, depression—even vocalizing the desire to end your life—all these things were interpreted as slanders against the State. Suicide, like murder, had no place in the evolution of a higher society.
The sons were evidently deciding whether or not it was possible to deny the allegation. Leo softened his tone:
—An autopsy will reveal that his spine is broken. I have to investigate his suicide as rigorously as I would his murder. The reason for his suicide concerns me, not your understandable desire to cover it up.
The younger son, Akvsenti, answered, speaking for the first time:
—I cut his throat.
The young man continued:
—I was lowering his body. I realized what he’d done to our lives.
—Do you have any idea why he killed himself?
—He was drinking. He was depressed about work.
They were telling the truth yet it was incomplete, either through ignorance or calculation. Leo pressed the matter:
—A fifty-five-year-old man doesn’t kill himself because his readers got ink on their fingers. Your father has survived far worse troubles than that.
The older son became angry:
—I’ve spent four years training to be a doctor. All for nothing—no hospital will hire me now.
LD02 - The Secret Speech Page 3